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DEVOTIONAL:
As the father of two sons, this passage speaks deeply to me of the gift of extravagant love that God has given by blessing me with my boys. It comforts me so to know that God heaps that love on me and also on you. I understand that no matter how far I stray, I am forgiven as soon as I even so much as desire to repent and return. God knows what’s in my heart, and will offer me forgiveness even though I am unworthy.

But it also challenges me to imagine the ways that the things I hold on to affect me. How can it be that the father celebrates the return of the one who wished him dead by asking for his share early, the one who spent that share in the most selfish ways imaginable, the one who disgraced the older brother, himself, and perhaps most unbearably their own father?

In my Lenten prayers, I usually focus on the space I make for God in my life by letting go of something. But this Lenten season, I have been praying about what I hold on to. And in this passage, I read the challenge for us as “letting go of what we hold onto.” As I hold onto my desire to do what is right, say what is right and even think what is right, I can miss that my inheritance is not a reward for being righteous – it is, instead, God’s grace.

That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t strive to live righteously, and to keep the promises I make to others, to myself and to God. But grace doesn’t come to me because I have done those things, it comes to me only because I let go of the human things I hold dear, and hold fast to God.

PRAYER:
May we feel your grace today, Lord, as we seek to love you with all our hearts, all our souls, all our minds and all our strength.

Scripture: Luke 15:1-3 (NRSV)

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.
2And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.
3So he told them this parable: